Traveling from Russia to America and from America to Russia is not just physically difficult, but emotionally difficult as well.  On the one hand we are excited to see the land and people that we have been apart from – but at the same time it means separation from the ones that we are with currently.  Our “hello’s are always preceded by “goodbye’s”.  It is like we are part of two completely different worlds, both of which we love, both of which seem to preclude the other.

We had two 4-hour flights on Saturday the 5^th through Moscow to Frankfurt, Germany, and then a 9-hour flight from Frankfurt to Atlanta on Sunday.  We have traveled this route many times and always stay in the same hotel.  I call it my “wood between the worlds” because (for me, obviously not for those who live there) nothing happens there.  There’s nothing to be accomplished, nothing to get done.  I love sitting at breakfast drinking my coffee with a feeling of peace that is so often elusive in my two worlds – elusive because in them there is always the next thing to do.  In the wood between the worlds my bags are packed, all the things I can “do” are far away – all there is to do is watch the trees grow (and wait for the time for the shuttle to take us to the airport). 

The Frankfurt airport has a McDonald’s and tables near windows from which you can watch planes taking off and landing.  It’s our tradition to have dinner there.  This is a treat for us since there is no McDonald’s in Novosibirsk, in spite of the fact that Novosibirsk is a city of about 2 million.  It’s a double treat because of the view of the runway. 

Usually we arrive in Frankfurt too late to make any excursions into the city, and because of this we had never actually seen anything of Frankfurt besides the airport and the hotel and in between.  This time, however, we arrived at 1 pm and were able to get checked in to our flight for the next day and to our hotel, eat a late lunch/early dinner, and still have time to get a family pass for the train and ride into the center of the city.  We strolled around for about an hour.  It was so interesting to see the old and new side-by-side.

Our flight to Atlanta was the next day at noon, and as we all woke up fairly early because of the time difference, we had plenty of time to eat breakfast and for the kids and Joey to go for their traditional morning walk.  And for me to sit and drink a second cup of coffee in my wood between the worlds. 

But you can’t stay in the wood between the worlds forever – nor would you want to, really, there’s too much treasure hidden in each pool leading to new worlds and new experiences.  And we found our pool (okay, okay, our gate at the airport) that would take us to Atlanta and our summer in America. 

Frankfurt - old and new.

Frankfurt airport

Ya'll know where this is!!

The trip down was fairly uneventful except for getting pulled over for passing in a no passing zone, which was kind of odd because we were car number 3 in a line of 3 cars (all of which he pulled over) so not real sure who exactly we were passing.  Perhaps the officer wasn't really sure, either, at any rate he let us go on without a ticket, and what might have taken thirty minutes (did I mention that we were 3rd out of 3?) took only about ten. (Those of us in the car were praying about that because we didn't want the ticket of course, but we were also beginning to worry about getting to our own concert on time.)

We did get to the concert in time to set up in a room that was a bit smaller than we had expected.  We were practically right next to our audience - or we would have been, if they would have come inside.  For some reason they felt more comfortable standing outside the door.  They said they could hear just fine from there.  So we decided since they were more comfortable outside we would take our concert out there onto the porch.  We moved ourselves and our instruments onto the porch, and that seemed to suit everyone except for the few ladies who HAD come in and wanted to listen to the music inside where it was warmer (it was between 40-50 degrees).  But in the end everyone was happy (although a little chilly) and we actually garnered a few more for our "audience", some folks wandered over and stopped to listen and others were listening from their apartment windows.  Once I looked up and saw that the babushka (grandmother) listening from the third floor window in front of (and above) us was dancing.

We played for about an hour, and except for the wind blowing all our notes away several times (oh - I didn't intend that pun!) it went well and we were invited to come back and play at one of the few churches sometime.  Within an hour after we had finished playing it was raining.

A- , one of the ladies who had come inside for the concert (until we moved it out), found out that I was staying the night in Leninsk and asked me to come and stay the night with her and spend some time that evening with her and her friends.  One of the guys from our church in Novosibirsk drives to Leninsk every Saturday (taking with him whoever can go as well) in order to do a Bible study at A- 's flat for these ladies and their grown children.  This is a big deal in the winter - if your car breaks down between cities you can freeze to death.  (For this reason, below certain temperatures the police won't let cars leave the city).  Being Saturday, it was the night that would ordinarily have been the Bible study night, and they just got together as they usually did except that I was the guest from Novosibirsk this time.

The women who attend the Bible study at A- 's place all have children who either have been or are currently drug addicts.  Often some of these will also be at the study.  While all cities have their pockets with drug problems, Leninsk is notorious for their problem with heroin.  It was heartbreaking to hear their stories:hiding belongings and money from their grown children who would do anything to pay for the next dose, worrying anxiously over the whereabouts and well-being of a son of daughter who is somewhere shooting up - but also amazing to see how they share and encourage each other, and to hear the stories of little victories - this son, that daughter - who have gone to Christian rehab centers and are (so far) free of drugs. 

There are small victories being won.  There are also the tragedies - one son dead, along with five of his friends - all separate drug related deaths, all within six months. 

Zhenya and I caught the train back the next morning.  The guy who was taking us to the train station was late - when he came out in the morning the air had gone out of two of his tires.  He picked us up at 9:30 (Zhenya had been staying at the other apartment) - our train was at 9:43 and the station was outside of the city.  He's always kind of on the edge with making things on time, but somehow it always works out for him.  However this time even he didn't think we would make it, saying, "we can't make it - we need to pray".  The ride to the station was harrowing (he was going very fast and had to avoid the parade for VE day) but when he left us at the station the train had not yet come.  It was a little station, kind of picturesque (sorry I did not get a picture) and we even had to wait a few minutes for the train (but not long enough to get a picture).  Joey said later that he thinks the train had to have been late - but I don't know, as I didn't check my watch.  We were back in Novosibirsk at 1pm. 

Don't be fooled by the t-shirt.  Note that EVERYONE ELSE is in a jacket.

For those of you with a critical eye, yes I do have my foot pedals turned backwards.  It's digital, and sometimes it doesn't respond to the ball of my foot but always responds to my heel...anyway, it works for me.

The Box Elders (or "Ash-leaf maples") have all flowered - they look like they are covered all over with light green lace.  They will leaf later - but if you don't look closely it LOOKS like they have small pale leaves.  I've never considered them to be very pretty trees (especially compared to other maples), but that may not be fair to them, it could be that city life just doesn't agree with them.  Here in the city, at least, they are rather bent and straggly.  But I'm still very thankful to have one outside my bedroom window.  (I used to have one outside my kitchen window, too, but "they" cut it down.)  And despite the usual awkwardness (in this city, at least) of the Box Elder, in the early spring it is among the first to flower and bring color to all the grayness, the first to dress itself for spring.  In the early spring, the Box Elder is a beautiful tree.  Even when it is bent and straggly.

The Cottonwood is also flowering, and around the corner along the road the Mountain Ash (Rowan) is proudly displaying tiny leaves.  These leaves are covering the brown shriveled up berries that are so ugly now, but were so beautiful and red in the winter.  (Usually cedar waxwings fly in and eat the berries during the winter, but this year they did not.  Maybe they didn't like the weather, either?)

Funny, how we dress for the cold of the winter while the trees undress for it, and we rid ourselves of our warm winter clothes just when the trees begin to adorn themselves for spring....

The Box Elder outside my window.

Flowering Cottonwood in the midst of white birch.

Cottonwood old leaves and new green.

Young Rowan leaves.

Be that as it may, yesterday they turned off the heat.  Yesterday morning,  there were little buds on the tree outside my window that by evening had already begun to open up.  It looks like the trees might just have some early leaves by May 1.  Yesterday I took a walk in the park, and while many people were still in jackets, some had thrown off their jackets and were dressed for summer.  It's a bit incongruous to see someone in shorts and a short sleeve shirt ambling by a large mound of dirty snow.   Yesterday there were little patches of dark green where new grass was beginning to grow, showing up cheerfully against last year's old yellow grass that was revealed by the melting snow.  Yesterday it was warm.

Today it is chilly again and smells and feels like rain.  People aren't wearing summer clothes without jackets. (Although I suspect that some of these jackets may be concealing summer apparel.)  There are still places where the snow hasn't melted - as there was yesterday.

But today we are packing away our winter coats and hats and gloves and scarves.  We're done with them until - well, until October, at least.

You can see some snow still hanging on in the background.

Lingering snow in the park.

When we woke the next morning it was a bit - nippy.  I looked out the window and found that our rain had turned to snow.  It went back and forth between snow and rain for a bit, but the snow won out. The rain had washed a little bit of the old snow away, but there's still a whole lot left to be "dealt with".   Still, rain...that means the cold and snow can't hold out too much longer.

I didn't want the new snow.  But I did have to grudgingly admit that it was pretty.  As I sat on my bed looking out the window at the gray sky, the sun finally broke through (if you can call it that) and all the drops of rain that had frozen on the bare tree limbs began to sparkle and shine - like a string of Christmas tree lights (albeit on a rather stark and bleak tree).  Even the bleak can contain so much beauty.

frozen raindrops...

those are not hills behind the kids, just piles of snow - it'll be flat when it all melts.

"I'm melting!!!"

But I envied her passion.  I’m content where I am, I certainly don’t feel any discomfort – but I can’t say I have felt passion recently.  This is just where I live.  These are just my friends.  Perhaps part of my lack of passion has to do with a lack of passion about anything at this time of year, at the end of a long winter, with spring around the bend but not yet here, the snow still all around but gray and tired, rather than crisp and pretty. The puddles that are beginning to form as the snow melts a little during the day (and freezes again at night) are somewhat yellow (don’t think about that one too much – !!) and the trash that has been tossed around by people littering – and other stuff (think of all the dogs that have been walked every day all winter) -  but was gently covered and hidden from our sight by the newly falling snow almost daily – is now all being revealed as its covering retreats slowly and slips away, leaving a whole winter’s worth of frozen ick out there in plain view. 

The spring depression, some people call it.  Some people say it’s because of the lack of vitamins through the winter and by the time spring comes everyone is tired and depressed.  I think it may be because spring is supposed to be here long ago and still isn’t quite here yet.  I used to not believe in it, this spring depression, but I believe in it now. You just begin to feel very weary and it’s hard to be passionate about ANYTHING. 

But still.  I don’t want to see this people I live among – or this place I am living – as – ordinary.  Of course in the story it’s rather easy as the author doesn’t really present a bad or ordinary side to the people and the country (make believe) that Harry is in (nor did I want her to), it is all good and exciting and interesting.  In reality all countries and all peoples have their richness and beauty, and have their grayer – and blacker – moments as well.  And that can make it harder to be passionate. 

But this is all to say that yesterday morning I found myself praying that the Lord would help me to see anew the riches and beauty of this place and this people in general (seeing the wonders of my individual friends is easy). 

It just so happens that we had tickets to go see the Siberian Russian Folk Choir last night.  My daughter Aleicia takes Russian folk dance (to see one of Aleicia’s performances go to my blog entry “Christmases”).  Her teacher is one of the dancers in this troupe of over 80 singers, dancers, and musicians,  as are the parents of two of the children that dance with Aleicia (including our teacher’s sister), and their focus is Russian folk music.  I have been to one of their performances before, but Joey had not – it is absolutely breathtaking. He kept looking over at me and smiling.  There were songs about the sacrifices and pain of World War II (only 3 percent of the young men between 19-23 were alive after the war), a “re-enactment” of a wedding, and other things.  The dancing was incredible and joyous and made you (or me at least) want to be part of it. I wanted to dance and sing with them.  I wanted to be in the middle of it.

I have this propensity to get caught up in things and want to do it, too. I don’t want to just watch, I want to be a part.  This is why I have a djembe and a dulcimer – because when I watched others play my hands and my heart wanted to “dance” as well.  I don’t play either of them well (at this time in my life I don’t have the time required to really learn them well), but I did play the dulcimer in one of the songs (Little Things) on my CD A Few Small Fish.  I have to say here that when Alexei mixed the song, he hid it behind some other things that he added – and I never had the courage to ask him if he just didn’t know what to do with it (it’s not an instrument he’s very familiar with) or if it was because I had played it that badly (smiley).  I play the djembe sometimes on our worship team at church – nothing fancy, in part because I’m singing as well and in part because I don’t really know how to do anything fancy on it.  Playing the djembe, though, earned me the  honor of being our worship team’s drummer – although I’m not a REAL drummer – and so I now also play a compact digital drum set for our team – and although again I don’t really do it well, (my excuse, once more, is that I’m also one of the main singers) – I LOVE playing  and hope to one day be able to try out a real drum set….because I can feel how it SHOULD feel to play a real one…and I love to be in the middle of the music with the singing and the drum…

So, you see, I get – caught up – I have this tendency to want to be part of the dance, to want to be in the middle of it – and so wanting to be IN the dance with this troupe is not a new experience for me…

But it was good for me, longing to be among them, to be part of them and their dance, even though I couldn’t, and I can’t…

(well, maybe I could run out and take Russian folk dancing lessons, but my life isn’t such that that would be real feasible right now, and anyway, if I did have the time I’d do better to practice my drums and/or the dulcimer, or spend some time with my guitar, or better yet, reading with my children)

…but the longing is good.  And in some ways, I am part of this dance of theirs, the dance of this people that I am living among…and maybe one day I will find that I was a bigger part of it than I could ever have hoped. 

Some of my own clips that I filmed at the concert, Above.

Other clips of The Siberian Russian Folk Choir:

The soldiers really start dancing about halfway through.

Maybe the White Witch's spell is beginning to break at long last.

Maybe Aslan is on the move.

Of course, I would like to move in a few hours from January to May.  But even though it won't take just a few hours - or even a few days! -  to melt all this snow and for plants and trees to start budding - it is no less of a miracle for all that.

I can't wait for the sounds and smells of the first rain falling.  I can almost taste it.

But the reality right now is a lot of snow and temperatures still too cold for rain.

We had overcast skies and snow for Easter - and for the days before that - and for the days after that.  More often than not the snow has melted by Easter - but that is generally because Easter in Russia usually comes later than it does in the West. The West uses the Gregorian calendar to determine the date for Easter, and the East uses the Julian calendar.  About once every 19 years, Easter will fall on the same day both in the West and the East. That happened this year.  But usually we celebrate Easter on a different day, often several weeks later, and once it was even in early May.

Otherwise Easter is very much the same here in Russia.  We dye Easter eggs.  We attend an Easter service and celebrate Jesus' resurrection from the dead.  I think one of the main differences, though, as I see it, is that in the West a lot of folks who don't generally go to church throughout the year will go to church on Easter, while in the East if they don't generally go to church they won't go on Easter, either.  They will however, still make a big deal out of the holiday.  In Russia, the greeting "Христос воскрес!" (Christ is Risen!), and the answer "Воистину воскрес!" (He is Risen Indeed!) is used by many when greeting others throughout the day (in place of hello), regardless of what the person's opinion may be about the truth of what he is saying. 

Part of the Easter tradition here is to make or buy (we bought ours) a little cake called a kulich, or an Easter cake, or Easter bread.  It is roundish and covered with white icing.  These cakes are only available during Easter.  According to tradition they are blessed by the Orthodox priest, and are eaten on and after Easter, but not after Pentecost.  Just about everyone will have one for Easter, as they celebrate a resurrection that they may or may not believe in. 

We celebrated Jesus' resurrection this past weekend, and continue to rejoice in the promise of the coming resurrection and renewal.  And the hope of spring is in the air.

The snow is still here but beginning to melt, you can see the puddle that is being formed as it melts a little each day and refreezes at night.  On the left you can see the top of a trash can and bench.

I started blogging because I realized that in 15 years of living here in Siberia I’d never really written anything about what it was like to live here.  So I decided to write about life in Siberia.  One result of writing about it is that I’m forced to think about what is interesting and/or different about living here.  I’ve been here so long that I don’t notice anymore, and when people ask me about the differences I often draw a blank and have to really think about it.

Since I started writing, I've noticed – or at least it seems to me – that I’m writing a lot about the weather.

And that’s what it’s like in Siberia.  You talk about the weather a lot.  Often conversations start with the weather.  If person has just come to your home – or you’ve just come to someone else’s home – on coming in from being outside the first thing out of your mouth is “kholodno!” (“It’s cold!”)  or if it’s not really that cold, the person coming in might say “teplo!” (it’s warm!)  Now you have to take that relatively, of course – if it was 30 below yesterday, and it’s now 10 below, believe me, it’s warm.  If you meet someone on the street – well, of course you’re going to talk about how cold it is or isn’t because you are feeling right at the moment how miserable it is waiting for the bus, or are pleasantly surprised with it not being miserable waiting for the bus because it’s “warm”. 

I rarely take the bus, by the way, even when it’s really cold, I just don’t like it.  I’d rather walk if it’s a reasonable distance and I’m not in a big hurry. – A reasonable distance means if I can get there in about half an hour. (An hour would mean I’m out for a walk and not really going anywhere.) I do take the subway – which is called “the metro”.  After the bombings in Moscow I may avoid the metro some, too. But we’re a long way from Moscow.

In the spring (or what should be the spring) we talk about “when in the world is the snow going to melt?”  Or, if it has started melting already (which it hasn’t yet), we all talk joyfully about how it’s melting and about how messy and wet it is outside. 

It hasn’t really started melting in earnest yet.  But it IS getting “that look”.

It’s April.  (Well, it will be tomorrow). This weekend is Easter (and we’re still hemmed in with all this snow that just doesn’t want to let go). Last weekend was Palm Sunday.  Here in Russia it’s called Verbnoye Sunday, which means, “Pussy Willow” Sunday.  I had a conversation about this with some of my friends on FB this week and thought I would mention it here.  Why do we have "Pussy Willow" Sunday?  According to my friend Sveta, the Russian Orthodox Church wanted branches for “the holiday the week before Easter” (in some places known as Palm Sunday), to represent the branches laid before Jesus when he entered Jerusalem.  (Need I mention that we don’t have palm trees here?) They chose branches that might be blooming already and were also pretty, and that turned out to be the "Pussy Willow".  My friend Anne, formerly from Finland, said that they always had "Pussy Willow" branches for Easter in Finland as well.   

The "Pussy Willow" branches, with their little furry buds, graced our church this past Sunday, according to the tradition of Verbnoye Sunday.  And I am still wondering where they got them, because I have yet to see anything sprouting any buds of any sort.

We’re reminded about the weather even in our church decorations.

I talk about the weather a lot.  That’s the way it is here.  We can’t get away from it. 

So bear with me. (And pray for spring!)

"Palm" (small indoor plant) and Pussy Willow branches.

Novosibirsk - clearing the roads and "driveways" of snow in preparation for the big thaw.

Yes, that mound of snow is as high as it looks like it is.

Yesterday Alyona and I saw two trucks carrying snow out of the city.  (They’ve started to clean the city, so we won’t be completely flooded when it all starts melting.)

Men are throwing snow off of the roofs.

It’s funny the things that can bring joy to my heart. 

I enjoy winter; I love snow.  But everything inside me knows it’s time for spring and longs for it. The promise given by the slightly warmer heat from the sun - that th in spite of the still below zero temperatures, has actually been able to warm up my kitchen this week.

It’s still a long way until spring is truly here.  A lot of degrees on the thermometer.  A lot of snow still to melt (or be carried out of the city before it does).   A lot of ice still holding the river captive. Hearts to be thawed.   

But the signs are all here, plain.  It really is coming.

And I did not fully realize until now how much I longed for it.

Funny how in the winter, you forget that the sun can actually be…warm, and you forget the feeling of its warmth on your face, or how it can make the back of your eyelids pink when you close your eyes.   

We haven’t been cross country skiing this year. 

People are talking about how unrelenting the winter has been.  But the city continues on as usual.  Kids go to school – everyone still goes to work.    

It’s cold.  But that’s just life.